


As the Season Rolls Around

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, christmas shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: It had been Dick’s idea to celebrate Christmas together at the Manor. Steph had no idea how he managed it, what levels of blackmail he had resorted to, and how badly this is going to bite him in the ass in the not so near future, but he got everyone to agree to a unilateral ceasefire. Everyone agreed not to try to kill each other or say anything about any murder attempts that may have previously happened; had it signed and everything. Steph had no idea if Dick’ll manage to actually pull it off to the end, but it’ll be a delight to watch it play out.





	As the Season Rolls Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pennysparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparrow/gifts).



> Happy holidays!
> 
> I used the teddy bear prompt and just sort of ran with it. This work is just a piece of self-indulgent fluff that I made to fix a lot of problems I had with canon ~~I'm still not over Batgirl v2~~. had a lot of fun with and I hope you will too :D

“Stephanie step away from the fridge or I swear to God, the teddy bear gets it.”

Steph literally feels her entire blood, body, and soul freeze over whenever she hears Babs using The Voice. The Voice is more terrifying than any supervillain and nothing can convince her otherwise, especially since Babs very rarely uses it. She turns slowly and holds her hands up in surrender. Babs is in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and Mr. Cuddles on her lap.

“There’s no need to bring Mr. Cuddles into this,” Steph says. “I come in peace.”

Babs’ face is a thundercloud. Between her clenched fists is Mr. Cuddles. “Step. Away. From. The. Fridge.”

Steph slowly steps away because if Babs says something in that voice, you damn well listened to her.

“Now get out of my kitchen,” Babs says.

“I came to help! Tim said that you were cooking and...”

Babs levels Steph with a glare that is pure steel and she feels her words trail off. She’d almost forgotten how terrifying she could be, especially when the holidays came around.

“The Waynes are in the living room. Stay there and make sure they don’t break anything while I cook here.” She throws Mr. Cuddles to Steph who catches him and cradles him to her chest. How did Babs even  _ find  _ him? The last Steph checked, Mr. Cuddles was locked safely in her bedroom across the  _ city _ .

Then, Babs’ words sunk in and she blinks in surprise. “What are they doing here? I thought we were having dinner at the manor?”

“Alfred kicked them out. He said they were being a nuisance.”

“Like you’re kicking me out and--”

"Stephanie.”

“I am leaving now!” Steph says loudly. “Good luck with the dinner I am definitely not helping you with.”

Steph runs out just as Babs is pinching the bridge of her nose. She knows when to back down from a fight. Most of the time, anyway.

Or at least, she knows when to back down from a stressed out Babs which is a skill every hero (and some of the villains) have to learn quickly or learn to regret not knowing. Even Batman cowed under a pissed off Oracle.

The living room is… Well, it’s a living room filled with all the Waynes who are all probably running on sugar highs because Christmas and they have a father who cannot say no to bad cookie decisions. He can say no to just about everything else, including but not limited to life and death decisions, but bad cookie decisions? Bruce Wayne is just a fucking enabler. Steph is probably just lucky that it’s mostly just things getting scattered around and not outright destroyed. And that Tim and Damian haven’t dissolved into fistfights yet.

Dick is off texting to the side, seemingly desynthesized to Tim and Damian arguing and honestly, Steph thinks, same, while Bruce is watching their escalating voices with a mixture of horror and exhaustion. He seems to have skipped out on his morning coffee.

Bruce has been back for two months now and it seems he’s not getting used to the almost affectionate antagonism that now defined Tim and Damian’s relationship, as opposed to the genuine antagonism he had left behind. Or maybe he can’t tell the difference. You never know with Bruce. Steph has found that Bruce, as a general rule, did not really know how to accept change, and most definitely did not like admitting to this fact.

She feels rather than hears Cass slamming into her in a tight embrace. Well, she assumes it’s Cass anyway, since no one else seems inclined to slam into her like that. Steph lets her surprise overtake her for about a second before she wraps her arms around Cass.

“I missed you,” Cass says into her hair.

“I didn’t know you were back,” Steph says.

“Neither did we until two minutes ago,” she hears Dick says. Steph almost winces because Dick sounds almost fond but Steph just knows that it’s going to be awkward and no, just no and…

Cass tightens her arms around Steph.

“It was a surprise. For everyone.”

Cass pulls away first, and stares into Steph’s eyes, grinning. Not much has changed with her, a little fuller, maybe, her smile a little easier, definitely a lot more mischievous. Or maybe that’s just Steph’s mind playing tricks on her. She doesn’t have Cass’ levels of reading body language. Cass seems alright and if she’s not, they’ll have time to talk about it later because Steph is so latching herself onto Cass and never letting go again, and keeping her in Gotham, to hell with Bruce.

“I’m really, really glad you’re back,” Steph says and jumps when she hears something crash.

“Give it back!”

“I found it first, you little Demon!”

“You are acting like a child!”

Dick doesn’t even bother to look up from whoever he’s texting. “Damian for the love of god just--”

Ah. There are the fist fights. Steph honestly cannot tell with Tim and Damian if they’re trying to kill each other out of spite or affection. She makes a note to ask Cass about it later. Probably affection, though, since Dick hasn’t interfered yet.

“Boys!”

Bruce’s sharp voice comes about a second too late before there’s a crashing and a shattering of something made of glass. Dick lets out a low curse while Tim and Damian are staring at the broken ornament, horrified.

“This is your fault,” Damian hisses to Tim.

“What are the chances Babs heard that?” Tim whispers.

“Very high,” a voice calls out from the kitchen. “Whoever broke my stuff better not be here when I get out or there’ll be hell to pay.” There is a collective wince in the room. 

“I--” Tim says. “I’m just going to disappear now,” he says and literally jumps out the window. Bruce leans out and watches him parkour out of the clock tower.

“Better make yourself scarce, squirt,” Steph tells Damian.

“I wasn’t the one who broke--”

“Dami do you really want to be here when Babs sees this mess?” Dick asks.

Damian hesitates before jogging out the door.

Bruce sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“I’ve missed being home,” Cass says happily.

\--

Things mostly go well after that, in the sense that in the four hours they wait with each other, they manage not to burn down Babs’ tower, which is about as well as anyone could have possibly hoped for.

They do, however, nearly caused an interplanetary war. Mostly by accident.

(Steph firmly blames Cass. They were sparring and the little shit tripped Steph, which sent her careening into Babs’ mainframe, and  _ accidentally  _ (shut up, Dick) hailing a nearby alien spacecraft who lost their way and apparently only  _ looked  _ like Tamaraneans and who apparently only shared enough of a language with them to take Dick’s attempts at giving them directions as mortal insults.

Babs had to intervene mid-way by sending Superman there to clear things up. Because apparently, even if you are from two completely different planets and share no common language, you still can’t help but trust Superman.

Really, just a regular day at the Clocktower.)

“I have no idea why I let any of you into my house,” Babs says. On her lap is a perfectly made casserole.

“Technically I snuck in,” Steph says.

“I came in through the window,” Cass says.

“We had to dismantle your security system to get in here,” Dick points out. “It took nearly half an hour.”

Babs gets that look on her face where she’s trying her hardest not to look pleased with herself and failing very hard. It’s the only thing that Babs actually manages to fail at.

“Like I said, no idea why I let any of you in. Now are we going to the manor or what?”

It had been Dick’s idea to celebrate Christmas together at the Manor. Steph had no idea how he managed it, what levels of blackmail he had resorted to, and how badly this is going to bite him in the ass in the not so near future, but he got everyone to agree to a unilateral ceasefire, even Jason Todd who was still pretending he hated everyone for Bruce’s sake. Everyone agreed not to try to kill each other or say anything about any murder attempts that may have previously happened; had it signed and everything. Commissioner Gordon is even coming and since everyone is still pretending he doesn’t know the Secret, they’ll probably be on their very best behavior for him. Steph had no idea if Dick’ll manage to actually pull it off to the end, but it’ll be a delight to watch it play out.

“You said no fighting,” Cass says. 

“I did,” Dick says.

"Tim and Damian were fighting.”

“They weren’t fighting,” says Dick, rolling his eyes. “That’s just a regular Friday for them. I’m starting to get the impression that that’s their version of a hug.”

There is still something just a little stiff, and just a little stilted between the two of them but that’s their business and not Steph’s. And they’re trying--Cass is humoring him and Dick’s grin is just this side of mischievous--so there’s that.

“He’s telling the truth,” Steph says. “You should see them on Monday mornings. Or rather don’t. I still have scars from when Damian threw the sword.”

“Tim threw the sword,” Dick says. “Damian threw the kitchen knives.”

Oh right. Steph had forgotten what Tim was like before he had his morning coffee; a trait he apparently shares with Damian. 

“Jesus Christ,” Bruce says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I need more coffee.”

Cass tilts her head, looking a bit concerned, which takes a moment to sink in. It’s kinda hard to remember that this is not normal; that the system they have going is weird, even for the superhero/vigilante community. That maybe it’s not everyone’s regular Sunday morning to watch their brothers/ex-boyfriends throw deadly projectiles at each other before casually stopping interplanetary wars in the afternoon. That maybe they could come off of as just a little weird and probably a lot crazy, even to a group of people who deal with the weird and crazy on a daily basis.

It works out fine, though, so Steph doesn’t really want to question it much. 

“Let’s just go to the manor,” Babs says. From the look on her face, she probably forgot too. Dick looks downright baffled at the looks Bruce and Cass are giving him. Perspective wise, the three of them may just be a tad bit skewed.

\--

(The thing is, for the longest time it  _ was  _ just the three of them running Gotham and trying to make sure it didn’t burn itself to the ground, which has its own way of messing with your head. Damian was there, but they were busy making sure he didn’t self-destruct either, trying to teach him how to be a real boy and all that.

And there are just some things that you go through with other people and can’t help ending up liking each other. Babs has always been and will forever be awesome, Steph never doubted that. The fact that she made Steph Batgirl just proves that fact. She’d never really been close with Dick before, though, but after one too many patrols crossing, she realized that he was actually pretty cool, and also kind of a dork. Also, he has this way of pulling off shit that should be impossible and making it look like it was easy.

It’s a few months into his run as Batman, about three weeks after Steph realized that she’d been having dinner at the penthouse more than her own house, that Dick manages to get through to Jason Todd and a tentative peace was settled.

It was a few weeks more before she came over to the penthouse and saw him eating  _ her  _ waffles and reading a book that clearly belonged to Babs. Damian was occasionally glaring at him from the living room couch but he also seemed absorbed on whatever he was playing on his phone. It was then that Steph realized that things were maybe changing. 

Gotham was still a hellhole, of course, but there’s nothing new about that, but things were beginning to settle. After everything went to shit when Bruce died and it seemed like the world would literally fall apart. Except it didn’t and for a while, things actually settled down, and it was almost  _ domestic. _

Of course that was before they all realized Bruce was never dead to begin with and it all went to hell again.)

\--

Jason is in the manor. Steph knows that Jason is in the manor because his bike is in the lawn, and there are also eggshells scattered across the walkway and egg splatter on the windows. Also Bruce is giving Dick a very, very hard look. Babs wheels past it without even a second glance. Cass looks concerned again but follows her wordlessly.

Dick shrugs under Bruce’s scrutiny, still completely nonchalant. Steph likes to think that she’s gotten to know him pretty well when it was just her, him, Babs, and Damian in Gotham, but she still has no idea how he doesn’t want to hide under a rock when subjected to Bruce’’s Look.

“He does this every other Tuesday,” Dick says. “He usually cleans it up afterwards. I think it’s the principle of the thing for him.”

“Being lost in time is less complicated than this,” Bruce mutters. Dick hums noncommittally and Steph pats Bruce in the shoulder.

“Don’t talk like that, Big Man,” she says. “You have to suffer through this disaster like the rest of us.”

Bruce turns the withering glare towards her and Stephanie Brown is not Dick Grayson and she has not developed the superpower of completely ignoring Bruce Wayne. She wilts under it, just slightly though, because she has developed a kind of high tolerance for it.

She had been Robin, after all.

“Let’s just get this thing over with,” Dick says and bless him, his cheerfulness almost sounds genuine.

\--

When they enter the manor, it’s to Tim and Jason wrestling on the floor of the drawing room. Damian is on his phone, no doubt taking pictures for blackmail material because if there is one thing the three of them had been able to impress upon Damian in the months that Bruce was gone, it was the importance of blackmail material.

Dick clears his throat and says in a loud voice,

“Are the two of you gonna stop fighting or is everyone in this house about to receive a picture neither of you would want to remember?”

The fight abruptly falls still. Jason has Tim in a headlock and is glaring at Dick like he wants to kill him. 

Not  _ kill  _ kill because he’s mostly gotten over that, but… Well, you know what she means.

“I will get you for this Goldie,” he growls and he sounds so much like Bruce that Steph has to remind herself to ask Babs for the footage later. Christmas, it turns out, is a gold mine of blackmail material.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dick says, waving his hand dismissively. “You’re going to kill me for revenge, I know. We’ve been through this three times already. Now would you please let go of Tim so we can eat?”

Jason does. Tim turns to him and looks downright murderous. Steph has absolutely no doubt that as soon as the clock strikes midnight and they’re free from Dick’s contract, the group chat is going to crash with all the blackmail material everyone is eager to put out. 

Steph leans over to Dick and whispers, “You’re really milking this blackmail for all it’s worth, aren’t you? You know this is going to backfire on you, right?”

Dick shrugs. “They’re gonna hold those pictures over me anyway. Besides, how else am I supposed to get everyone in the same house for Christmas?”

Touche. “In the spirit of Christmas, yeah?”

Dick regards the full drawing room. Tim, Damian, and Jason are in close proximity with one another and pointedly not talking, Cass is here though Steph is almost sure Dick didn’t orchestrate that, and Bruce is watching it all, looking like he’d like nothing more than to go back to bed. Babs is on her phone, still coordinating heroes across the country because justice never sleeps and the JLA is dealing with multidimensional bullshit again.

“In the spirit of Christmas,” he deadpans.

\--

As they’re seating themselves around the table, Babs says, “Dad’s gonna be late, by the way. There’s some things he has to take care of at GCPD.”

Dick frowns. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Nah, it’s just a couple of drunk drivers that he came across on his way here.”

“Horrible luck.”

Babs shrugs. The rest of them are slowly making their way to the table, and really, they’re just waiting on Bruce and Jason now who lagged behind while they were passing by the study and… holy shit.

“Babs,” Steph says. “Tell me we weren’t stupid enough to leave Bruce and Jason behind in the study.”

Dick is out of his seat and running down the hall before Steph even finished her sentence. Babs has removed her glasses and is currently pinching the bridge of her nose very hard. Tim sighs and takes a long drink from his apple cider. Why he keeps refusing Steph’s offers of alcohol is still a mystery.

“Todd is not going to try to kill Father is he?” Damian asks, the closest to uncertain he’s ever sounded. Funny how he still manages to sound like a prick.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Steph says at the same time Babs says, “Cass please make sure everyone comes out of that room alive.”

Cass silently leaves the room and follows Dick.

Steph closes her eyes. She counts: one, two, three and...

Jason is thundering down the hallway, Bruce hot on his heels. Dick and Cass seem to have come to the agreement that leaving them alone is the best solution. That or they’re fighting too.

Steph really hopes it’s the former.

“Jason if you would just listen to me!”

“Screw you and your over-controlling ass!” Jason screams before storming off. Steph shares a look with Tim and the two of them are following Bruce and Jason against their better judgement, leaving Damian alone with Babs.

They’re just in time to see Jason letting out a string of curses in the foyer as he wrenches the door open and…

Commissioner Gordon is there, a hand raised to knock.

“--shove it up your ass,” Jason finishes lamely. He’s staring at Commissioner Gordon, eyes wide. Tim groans and buries his face in his hands. Steph takes a page out of Babs’ book and pinches the bridge of her nose. She needs to be a bit more drunk to deal with this shit.

“I brought red wine,” Commissioner Gordon says, completely unflappable.

\--

“--I was out of line,” Steph hears Dick say as she passes the study. She falls still despite herself. “I’m sorry.”

“Dick,” Cass says. “It’s fine.”

“No,” Dick says. “It’s not.”

There’s a long silence and Steph knows she should leave but she can’t quite get her feet to move. She doesn’t really know what went down between Dick and Cass--no one really talked about it--but it had been bad enough that Cass had refused to step into the manor afterwards.

Then Cass had left without explanation and there hadn’t been time for anything else.

“It’s not,” Cass finally says. “But I miss my big brother. And my family.”

There’s a shuffling which Steph knows means is Cass hugging Dick.

“None of us deserve you, you know that?” 

“Yes.”

Steph smiles and her feet move away. Everything’s going to be fine.

\--

It’s an unspoken rule in Wayne Manor that everyone except Damian is allowed to consume alcohol at their own discretion. Even Damian is already allowed a few sips of red wine at meal times. This rule went into complete override with Dick, a guy who was basically living alone with his friends on increasingly extended weekends ever since he was thirteen and had absolutely no idea what conventional parental supervision is.

Then again, from what she heard from the boys, Bruce wasn’t really much for conventional parental supervision either. 

Everyone except Tim, because of all the things Tim wants to be a stubborn stickler for rules is, it’s alcohol, is taking advantage of this fact right now, to Commissioner Gordon’s complete disapproval.

“Are you old enough to drink that, son?” he asks Jason, who was pouring himself a very generous glass of vodka.

Jason stares at him blankly. His age is a bit sketchy because he’s been dead for not-even-he knows how long, but he can’t possibly be more than nineteen at most. But then, it’s really hard to say no to drinking when you are literally allowing them to beat up people three times their age on a regular basis. Dick, Tim, and Cass are also staring at the Commissioner with varying degrees of bafflement and/or amusement.

It’s probably easier to say that none of the Waynes have any idea what the fuck conventional parental supervision is.

“It’s fine Jim,” Bruce says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s better he learns here.”

Commissioner Gordon stays silent. The disapproving frown does not leave his lips. Babs puts a hand on his arm with a frown matching his to a point.

“What’s your name, son?”

An awkward silence. Steph resists the urge to bury her face in her hands.

“...I don’t want to know, do I?”

A mutual shaking of the head.

Commissioner Gordon sighs and Steph can really see the family resemblance with Babs in the way he removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

\--

Dinner talk was mostly killed after that. Until Bruce asks to speak with Jason alone again and everyone tenses.

“It’s going to be fine,” Bruce says. Obviously, no one believes him.

It’s been an hour since Bruce and Jason disappeared into the study. In the time since then, there’s been shouting and the sound of a lot of stuff breaking. And that was just for the first half hour. After that, there was nothing but silence.

The entire family is watching the door. Commissioner Gordon left with a sigh right around death threats started coming out of the room, muttering about not wanting to be complicit in a murder.

“I’ll see you later,” he asks Babs and Babs had nodded her head, eyes trained on the door.

“You don’t think they’ve killed each other?” Steph asks. 

“.... Probably not,” Babs says. “Jason can’t take on Bruce.”

Cass takes Steph’s hand and leads her away into the dining room.

“Bruce and Jason will be fine,” she says.

Steph is not really sure she believes that but it’s Cass so it’s as close to reassuring as it can get.

“I’m sorry.”

Steph pauses and she wishes she doesn’t know what Cass was talking about, but she did and it’s going to be  _ that  _ type of conversation.

“Don’t be,” she tells Cass. “It all turned out for the best.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone,” Cass says. “You needed my help.”

She did. Steph’s not gonna deny those first few weeks as Batgirl sucked pretty hard with a costume she didn’t expect and a bunch of criminals who expected better but… “Jesus, Cass, I don’t mind you left, okay? You needed to. You had your own shit to deal with.”

Cass takes her hand and looks her straight in the eye. She’s always been hard to read, but now it’s downright impossible. Hong Kong changed her, some of it good, some of it not so much.

“It was selfish.”

Steph shakes her head vehemently. “No it wasn’t. You lost a Dad. You’re allowed to grieve.”

You’re allowed to run away. Goodness knows Steph knows the urge. She knows it probably better than anyone.

“You and Dick weren’t getting on great at the time, either,” Steph continues. “And everything going on… What I’m trying to say is I get it, okay? You needed space. And I got to be Batgirl, so it all turned out great, didn’t it?”

Cass shakes her head because if there was one thing Cass had to learn from Bruce, it was this. Of course it was. Damn Waynes and their guilt complex. 

“Cass,” Steph says, squeezing her hand. “I’m really glad you’re back. I missed you and I’m literally never letting you leave again. I really don’t care about the rest.”

Cass’ searches her face and Steph tries to convey how perfectly okay she is with everything. Sure, it could have started out better, but Steph’s really sick on dwelling on past grievances. She likes what she has now and godammit, she’s going to enjoy it while it lasts.

“I missed you too,” Cass says and smiles in the way Steph knows that everything is okay.

\--

The two of them go back to everyone still watching the doors of the study just in time to hear Bruce shout:

"I just wanted to give you a present dammit!"

Silence. 

"... A present?"

Steph has no idea how Bruce managed to make an irritated sigh heard through closed oak doors but he does and it's kind of amazing.

"Yes," Bruce says. "A present. For Christmas. That was why I brought you here. Twice."

"... You're not going to lecture me?"

Silence.

"Or tell me how you want to save me from my own choices?"

"... Do you want me to?"

"Fuck no." Another silence. Steph hears someone, presumably Jason, pacing. "So what you're really saying is that I overreacted just a bit?"

"Yes."

Jason snorts. "Of course. Now where's that present you went to so much trouble to give me, old man?"

\--

“We did good, yeah?”

Dick smiles slightly, Babs at his side. The manor is quiet now. Tim and Damian had fallen asleep on top of each other. Jason is still miraculously there, reading Dickens to Cass by the fireplace. Bruce is watching it from the door, his expression probably the closest thing to happy that Steph has ever seen.

Babs smirks and takes Dick’s hand and Steph's hand. Steph squeezes it and smiles to herself.

Gotham will stand for a little while longer. This is all they’ve built and Steph is fucking proud of it and she knows they are too.

This is Gotham and it’s the one they made and their family is here and for once, it’s almost as if everything is going to be okay. Not a bad job, if Steph does say so herself.

“Yeah we did,” he says. “We did really good.”


End file.
